Hollywood faces worst ecological crisis in history

By Iain Alexander / 14 March 2015

California, home of America's entertainment industry faces an ecological crisis never before seen in the motion picture era, and time is running out to prepare for it.

According to NASA, the state of California only has 1 year left of water, and faces the biggest drought since records began in 1895. A significant decline in water reserves in the past decade has been accelerated by poor rainfall, and increasing demand from growing populations. A dry winter, and 3 years of drought have also compounded the problem in 2015.

The film industry often depicts disasters and end of the world scenarios in blockbusters, but until now it hasn't prepared itself for a disaster on its own doorstep. While Hollywood will continue to make movies, behind-the-scenes, water rationing and imports are going to start to drive up costs across the state and there is no backup plan or state contingency to deal with it.

According to the LA Times, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is already gearing up for mandatory water rationing but argues more needs to be done right now.

So far the film industry has been very quiet on the issue and there has been no real public advocacy from the entertainment business to raise awareness of the problem.

A Nasa study has revealed that it will take at least 11 trillion gallons of water to end California's extreme drought. Researchers are also predicting a 'megadrought' will hit the region in the coming years that will be, “way drier than the megadroughts of the 1100s and 1200s.”